Real Estate Weekly: 10/5/12

Smith, Gildea & Schmidt LLC, a Towson-based law firm, celebrated the renaming of its office building at 600 Washington Ave. in the heart of downtown Towson. Thursday’s celebration was marked with the unveiling of the building’s new sign, carrying the name of the firm. Smith, Gildea & Schmidt is a regional law firm with a national practice. The firm has doubled in size over the last two years and expanded its areas of focus, acquiring attorneys in all areas of law, from class action litigation to local land use cases.

COPT signs 1 MW lease at Virginia data center

Corporate Office Properties Trust, of Columbia, said it recently completed a new lease with a high-growth commercial co-location provider at COPT’s DC-6 data center in Manassas, Va. The unnamed tenant has an initial commitment of one megawatt, plus opportunities for expansion. With this commitment, four of the data center’s 18 potential MWs are committed, which increases the percentage leased from 17 percent at June 30, to 22 percent. “We are pleased to complete this new lease at COPT DC-6, and believe it validates the rebranding and marketing efforts recently launched with respect to the asset,” said Roger A. Waesche Jr., COPT’s president and CEO. COPT is an office real estate investment trust primarily focused on strategic customer relationships and specialized tenant requirements in the U.S. government and defense information technology sectors, and data centers serving those sectors.

Tallest documents storage center opens in Catonsville

NDX Group, an overnight shipping and records management provider, on Tuesday celebrated the expansion of its archive building on Old Frederick Road in Catonsville. The 18,280-square-foot, 65-foot-tall facility is the tallest records management and documents storage center in Maryland. “It’s wonderful to see NDX not only headquartered in Catonsville, but expanding in Catonsville,” said Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, who joined the celebration. “NDX is a locally owned business whose growth mirrors the thriving professional services sector in Baltimore County.” Six times the capacity of NDX’s previous warehouse, the new archive building is equipped with first-in-class security and fire prevention, and a multi-level catwalk racking system for quick and easy records retrieval. The company is storing hundreds of thousands of boxes for businesses in the Maryland-Washington-Northern Virginia area, including medical practices, law firms, financial organizations and title companies.

Open house scheduled at historic Howard County home

Howard County’s Department of Recreation and Parks is holding an open house from 9 a.m. to noon on Oct. 13 at the Belmont Manor and Historic Park, 6555 Belmont Woods Road in Elkridge. The department will offer walking tours of the premises and light refreshments will be available. The event will be held rain or shine. “We are excited to give the community a chance to see this historic gem and feel for themselves the connection it provides to Howard County heritage,” said Recreation and Parks Director John Byrd. “We have a lot of work to do before we’re officially open but this will offer a glimpse of the potential opportunities this resource can provide.” The Belmont Manor House was built in 1738 and was a private home until 1962. It is one of the oldest colonial buildings remaining in Howard County and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The property is approximately 83 acres. It will be a popular venue for environmental and historic education, weddings, events, meetings, retreats, and a variety of special events. The county purchased the property in June, ensuring that it will remain in the public trust.

McCrone relocates office but stays in same town

McCrone Inc., a full service civil engineering, land planning and surveying firm serving the mid?Atlantic region, announces the pending relocation of its Centreville office from 207 Liberty St. to 320 Pennsylvania Ave. The move will take place on Monday. The office has and will continue to provide land surveying, civil engineering design, land use planning and environmental engineering. Other McCrone offices are located in Annapolis, Elkton and Salisbury.

Remodeling underway for new Chase Brexton HQ and health center

Approaching its 35th anniversary, Chase Brexton Health Services held a ceremony this week to mark the start of renovations at its new headquarters, the historic former Monumental Life Building in Mount Vernon. Seattle-based NBBJ, an award-winning global design and architecture firm, has designed the 90,000-square-foot facility. The renovation is a culmination of efforts to expand access to quality, affordable health care for individuals in the state. Founded in Mount Vernon in 1978 as a volunteer-run gay men’s health clinic, Chase Brexton has grown through the years and now provides health care to more than 24,000 Marylanders. Its Baltimore City site, Mount Vernon Center, provides care for nearly 70 percent of those patients.

3-county health care training center opens

Community colleges in Carroll, Frederick and Howard counties this week celebrated the opening of a joint center for health-care education in Mount Airy. U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Rep. Elijah Cummings joined college officials at the event Monday. The federal government contributed $1 million toward the project. It includes three lecture rooms, a computer lab, two allied health labs and two biological science labs The complex will train up to 500 students a year to alleviate a shortage of health-care workers in Maryland.

Sperry Van Ness schedules commercial property auction

Sperry Van Ness – Miller Commercial Real Estate, a Salisbury-based real estate brokerage and asset and property management firm, said eight of its properties will be sold in an online auction between Oct. 23-25. The event is part of a larger sale hosted by Sperry Van Ness, through which more than $150 million worth of commercial real estate will be sold at auction. Five of the properties are in Salisbury, two in Pokomoke and one in Federalsburg. They range in function from office buildings to warehouses, and from a church structure to raw land. Prices range from $100,000 to $1.95 million. Brent Miller and Henry Hanna of Sperry Van Ness, the listing agents, can be reached at 410-543-2440. For information on the sale, go to www.svnauctionevent.com.

Howard County to build regulation cricket field

Howard County Executive Ken Ulman announced that renovation efforts will begin this month at Schooley Mill Park in Highland to establish Howard County’s only regulation cricket field. The new field, roughly 300 feet in diameter, overlays two existing multi-purpose fields that are in need of repair and will allow the new Howard County Cricket League to double its team capacity. To maintain the broadest use, the new design allows the original multi-purpose fields to remain available independently, when not scheduled for cricket. The project involves regrading the two existing fields to a single level, and making other necessary facility and infrastructure improvements including sidewalks and drainage systems for storm water management. In addition, a 22-yard-long, rectangular cricket “pitch” will be placed in open space between the fields. Work is expected to be completed later this year in preparation for an expanded spring season of the county adult league.

Cordish named as recipient of lifetime achievement award

David Cordish, chairman and president of the Baltimore-based Cordish Cos., has been selected as the 2012 ULI Baltimore WaveMaker Lifetime Achievement Award winner, it was announced by the Baltimore District Council of The Urban Land Institute. For decades, ULI has recognized outstanding real estate development projects, related programs and visionaries in urban development through its global “Awards of Excellence” program. ULI Baltimore’s District Council created the WaveMaker Awards event that recognizes local real estate development projects, as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award winner. Last year, M.J. “Jay” Brodie, the now-retired president of the Baltimore Development Corp., received the ULI Baltimore’s Lifetime Achievement Award. The award to Cordish, one of the most successful operators of entertainment districts and casinos in the world, will be presented on Oct. 25 at Pazo’s restaurant in Baltimore.

NAI KLNB has brokered the sale of 11730 and 11750 Baltimore Ave., a 235,000-square-foot distribution facility in Beltsville. The sale price was $27 million. The building covers approximately 20 percent of the 42-acre site, offering the new owner the opportunity to construct additional development for outside storage or warehouse space. Prologis Targeted U.S. Logistics Fund L.P., a co-investment fund managed by Prologis Private Capital, was the buyer, and Beltsville Express LLC was the seller of the project, which is 100 percent leased to Federal Express Corp. Chris Kubler, director of investment sales for NAI KLNB, was the sole broker in this transaction.